Towards Extended Resilience: Operational Model, Prototype Tool and Application Process for Resilience Check-Ups in Urban Planning.

In the context of rapid urban planning strategies, particularly in the adaptation to natural or man-made disasters (e.g. cities recovering from climate-related hazards or enduring war conflict) resilience frameworks emerge as crucial solutions. Despite the existence of numerous models, its operational integration into spatial-based instruments for strategic urban planning has not been consolidated. Existing instruments are mostly intended for policy and governance levels, but not for planners and designers. This paper reports about an ongoing project in the context of international development aid for the sustainable and resilient reconstruction of cities in Ukraine. Based on research on resilience models and approaches, the project targets the outline of an operational resilience model for urban planning that extends existing frameworks with considerations of the special conditions of war-inflicted cities. In addition, it must be assumed that resilience-related demands of cities vary highly, in accordance to site-specific factors (e.g. geographical location, exposure to threat, previous experiences). Conceptual means are needed thus to determine site-specific requirements which are able to fine-tune the model to a given location. In the project and the present paper, it is suggested that participatory approaches can ensure such local fitting. To make an adaptable resilience model and process, operational for planners and other users, a prototype tool is conceptualised that allows the rapid checkup of urban situations in regards to resilient demands (e.g. people evacuation times to shelters), and helps to design better solutions in urban reconstruction and future planning (e.g. allocation of new shelters). The presented project rests on four assumptions that are derived from the key necessities of the given context and outlines the approach to the research topic: (1) A hybrid methodological approach is needed that can connect qualitative and quantitative assessments, i.e. human deliberation as well as data-driven analysis. (2) A planner´s perspective need to be taken to ensure effective support in decision making for urban planning strategies. (3) A case study approach is necessary to ensure that location-specific conditions and requirements are factored into the model and method (while maintaining the overall target of a general framework applicable to other locations in the future). (4) The provision of a digital tool and interactive methodology is instrumental to collect intelligence about local demands and enable effective support for more rapid planning.